Jatia colluded with McD to grab my business: Vikram Bakshi

NEW DELHI: Vikram Bakshi, MD of Connaught Plaza Restaurants (CPRL), has alleged that his competitor Amit Jatia, vice-chairman of Westlife Development, colluded with the former management at the US burger chain McDonald's to grab his business.While CPRL, a 50:50 joint-venture between Bakshi and the US fast-food giant, runs McDonald's outlets in north and east India, Jatia-led Westlife Development operates the chain's outlets in west and south.

“Today he (Jatia) is claiming that he is going to take over the rest of the region (north and east India) and I would be really shocked that after knowing what he has done, they (McDonald's) would still give it to him,“ Bakshi told TOI.

However, Jatia's company termed the allegations baseless. “ Allegations against Hardcastle Restaurants (HRPL, a fully owned subsidiary of Westlife) are completely false and baseless, based on biased and selective information. This is being done to deflect the attention from the ongoing legal dispute between McDonald's Corporation and CPRL, and has no relevance to the dispute,“ a statement from HRPL said in response to a questionnaire from TOI.

According to Bakshi, McDonald's with which he is fighting a bitter legal battle, has favoured Westlife, despite CPRL having been a better performer in terms of net profit. McDonald's had ousted Bakshi as the MD of CPRL in 2013 for alleged mismanagement of the business.

“In May 2010, Mr Jatia wrote a cheque of Rs 10.78 lakh to buy out McDonald's 50% sta ke in their joint-venture.McDonald's wrote off their investment of Rs 107 crore at a loss of 99.9%,“ claimed Bakshi. “Immediately after that, Jatia brought in PE investment valuing Westlife at Rs 1,200 crore, which would mean McDonald's stake was worth Rs 600 crore.“

McDonald's rejected Bakshi's claims. “We want to remind you that all these allegations made came from someone with whom we have well publicised legal disputes with. We won't comment,“ said a statement from McDonald's, while responding to queries from TOI.

When asked about the reason behind this alleged favouritism, Bakshi said, “This could mean one person in McDonald's corporation who was the president at that time of that region wanted to take our piece of the cake for nothing and give it to Mr Jatia at a loss again.“

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